


How To Fix Your Detective Husbando

by SmexyWatermelon



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Oneshot, as always, this is so sweet it's making my teeth rot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 09:52:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8662876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmexyWatermelon/pseuds/SmexyWatermelon
Summary: Sole fixes Nick's body after a gun fight with raiders, and those unrequited love feelings he had? Turns out they're not unrequited at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I seriously have no idea what I'm doing.

“There you go, big guy. All patched up.” She claps her hands together and brushes her palms on her thighs, cleaning away the last oily remains of the coolant.  
He had never liked showing his tattered body to anyone, much less to Sole, and he would have never let her fix him if he had any other choice. The fact was, he hadn’t.  
“Thanks. I… appreciate it.” The words roll awkwardly in his metallic throat, but he doesn’t know what else to say.  
Sole picks up the remaining duct tape and grins at him. “Next time you tell me to ‘stop picking up that junk’, remember what prevented you from shutting off in the middle of the absolute nowhere.” Her mock is unnerving, but he must admit she has a point.  
Nick’s hand skims on his now taped torso: he thought the bullets hadn’t hit something crucial until he collapsed on the ground, leaking oil. He had never been so glad Sole was a compulsive accumulator: after two or three tapes the leak was gone, and she had stopped worrying and regained her usual stupid humor.

She kneels next to her backpack, putting the duct tape back in its place between a rubber duck and a not better identified piece of a giddyup buttercup; she then rummages through it and takes out all the bullets she had been collecting from dead raiders around the underground station: he just watches as she methodically starts checking every gun she’s carrying and fills them again, just in case some raiders showed up for round two.  
“You… wanted to tell me something, before we were interrupted?” she murmurs without stopping her meticulous work, her sentence cadenced by the sharp noises of the weapons clunking close.  
He leans against the counter Sole had dragged him to: he scratches the back of his neck, lost in thought. “I… I guess it’s not that important…” she doesn’t look at him, but she smiles. “Does bashful mode come standard on all synths or did you have to pay extra for that?”  
“Heh. No. Only on me;” _and I suppose that’s sort of the issue._ , he completes in his mind, still not entirely sure he wants to burden Sole with his problems too: the girl surely has already enough to handle by herself; it feels selfish to ask for her attention, but there’s nothing he wants more than that.  
She puts away the guns and rummages again in her backpack, that playful smirk still on her lips.  
“C’mon Nicky. You know I’m always willing to listen to one of your old detective stories.” He staggers again before answering “I wouldn’t normally bother ya with this sort of thing… but...” she looks up at him: a strand of hair falls in front of her face, her curious eyes encouraging him to go on. ”…I know I can trust you at this point.”

She stands up again, a cigarette between her plump lips: she lights it and hands it to him before doing it again with another one and taking a deep drag from it. “Shoot.”  
Nick puffs smoke, silently debating about how much he should be telling her.  
“I have these… flashes.” They’re not always bad. He remembers being happy at some point in his life, but again it was not really _his_ life. It made no sense referring to something that didn’t belong to him as ‘his’.  
“Flashes?” she tilts her head to the side.  
“My-- I mean, Nick’s… previous life.” And again that possessive slips between his words like it’s supposed to be there; it has lately become one of his most frequent mistakes, especially when he refers to the woman standing before him.  
“It’s just… everything I am, everything I will ever be… is just be the carbon copy of another person. I know I owe much to Nick, and I’m thankful it was him and not some crazy bucko that let scientist rummage through their gray matter for money… still…”

“… my _entire_ life, I owe to Nick.” It’s both relieving and burdening him to say that out loud, but it feels like the right thing to do and so he goes on.  
“Everything that makes me who I am – my judgement, my speech, hell, even my name – they’re his. And I can’t do a damn thing about it because without them—“ he inhales sharply, his processors buzzing in the back of his head “without them I’m nothing. A shell.”

There’s silence in the room: he reminds himself he shouldn’t have been pouring everything out like this- guess it’s too late for that.  
“This is how it’s gonna be. Living with another man’s name… another man’s life.” He takes a deep breath in, doesn’t notice her taking a step forward. Doesn’t mind. “You’ve already built a life for yourself, Nick. You’ve got the agency. A home. Friends.”  
He silently flicks his cigarette. “… I mean, you’re not wrong, but…” her hand reaches for his tape covered bust, delicately pressing with the forefinger on one of the edges of the tape that was already beginning to peel off of him.  
“All I want is a life where I have something I can really call my own.” He finishes the cigarette and stubs it out against the counter, then looks up at her: she’s nibbling at her inner cheeks, as she always does when she’s thinking about something important. He lets his eyes trail down her shoulder, following the arm that was pressing her soft hand against his chest.  
“You have me, Nick.” Her tone is so sweet. Needy. Her tender fingertips linger for a second too long on his synthetic skin, or the tattered remains of what was left of it. Strangely, it prickles where she touches.

Valentine’s gaze snaps immediately back to her face, trying to detect any trace of a joke, or lie, or whatever she could have come up with to make him feel better and he surely must have been interpreting in the wrong way: she keeps staring down, avoiding his gaze, a pretty pinkish hue coloring her cheeks.  
His sane hand travels to the side of her neck, his fingers pushing against it and his thumb pressed gently on her cheek as he forces her to look him in the eyes. “Doll… you can’t be serious…”

Her lower lip trembles. It’s just a quick shiver, but he sees it; she notices his stare, nibbles at her lip to mask it, making Nick feel light-headed, making him blame his old circuits for that funny reaction for the umpteenth time since he had met her. 

_Damn… she does mean it._  
He needs a moment to let that thought sink in, to realize there’s someone - and not anyone, but that _special_ someone - who wants something more. From him. He wasn’t a man, probably he did not even fit in the ‘synth’ description anymore- something he couldn’t even tell for sure.  
She had been through enough, there’s no way he would have allowed this to happen: he just couldn’t let her waste her love on someone like him.

“I-I don’t want to drag you in this!” he stutters as he pushes himself away from the counter, away from her. The funny feeling prickling his chest doesn’t leave him, his sensors confirming he isn’t blushing, but that feeling stays there, covering his skin in a warm caress. “You’re not dragging me anywhere, Nick. I’m here for you because I want to.” 

“You don’t know who you’re falling for; hell, I barely know it myself!” he blurts out half-truths, hoping to discourage her, hoping not to have the chance to let someone down again.  
His metallic hand digs in his forehead, covering his eyes: there are no tears obviously, but something keeps telling him _there should be_.  
He would have probably tried to gulp if he still had something resembling a throat attached to himself.

She remains quiet: he thinks he’s finally managed to convince her, when a tempting step reaches nearer him. Her voice speaks: it’s broken and uncertain, both characteristic that never seemed to belong to her. But he listens anyway.  
“I fell for the kind-hearted detective that didn’t hesitate a second before offering a hand to a complete stranger.”  
Another step. Closer, this time. His fingers keep curling and opening in his hands, and for the first time in a long while he realizes he doesn’t know what to do.  
“I fell for the friend that helped me through the mess that has become my daily life, the one that accompanied me to knock at a murderer’s door without as much as a demur.”  
One more step, and she’s behind him. His sensors catch her feeble breathing fondling his torn skin: her hands delicately touch his sides, slowly wrapping him in one of her warm embraces.  
“I fell for the only one who had the guts to accompany me to the Glowing Sea and back. And no matter how much I tried to ignore this,-“ she holds her breath for a second, as if fearing to say those words out loud “I’m hopelessly in love with you, Nicky.” 

Her fingers clasp on his chest, her head pressed against his back. A tiny sob escapes from her lips, and he realizes that the only thing he wants less than her falling in love with him is to see her crying.  
He delicately touches the back of her hands, making her loosen her grip on him that little he needs to turn around: she cries silently in front of him, eyes closed. He briefly wonders how many times she had done that without him knowing before reaching for her face and brushing away a tear with the pad of his thumb.

“Don’t.”

She opens her big, watery eyes and looks up at him “I don’t want to hurt you. I have already enough problems by myself, I can barely imagine what I will end up doing to someone else.”

“You won’t- hurt me.” She sobs, those desperate eyes full of love glaring at him.

A stupid smile spreads on his face “We haven’t even started our relationship and you’re already crying.” he softly murmurs, a tiny chuckle vibrating inside his chest.

“Because you’re not even giving it a shot, you dumbass!” she snaps, taking a step back and opening her arms in defeat. “I am here, pouring my heart out for you, and you’re not even-“ “I love you.”  
Her yelling ceases and she staggers for a brief moment, confused as hell.  
“Why do you think I would run so many diagnostics?” she stares at him wide-eyed, barely understanding what he was hinting at. “My body kept short-circuiting whenever I loitered around you for too long! It was-- maddening! And worse, I loved every single second of it!”  
He grabs her shoulders, not even fully realizing what he’s doing. “There’s nothing I want more than… well, you, Sole.”  
She stares into his black glowing eyes for a second before grabbing his arms and pushing him against the wall behind him: her lips are sweet and soft and just like he had always imagined she would taste. His arms wind around her waist, keeping her close: he knows this is wrong, and is also aware that something keeps making an odd whirring noise inside his chest he had never ever heard before, yet he wishes this moment could last forever.

They part a little, their noses barely touching.  
“…you sure you want this, kid?” he grazes the back of his fingers against her cheek: she doesn’t mind the coldness spreading from his metallic digits and leans in to that tiny caress. “You are still in time to call yourself out of this.” He sighs, knowing it would surely be for the best; her beautiful eyes look up at him, a smile spreading on her blushed face. “You’re not going to get rid of me so easily, Valentine.”  
She reaches for his face, pecking again his lips: it lasts for the shortest of moments, but Nick feels something resembling that ancient happiness he faintly remembers spreading through his body all the same.

“You doin’ okay? I wouldn’t want to fry your ancient processors now that we just started…”  
Nick grumbles undertone before leaning against her again with a grin playing on his lips.  
“You silly mouthy woman-“ he presses his mouth against hers, understanding just now these were the bits he had missed more from Nick Valentine’s old life.


End file.
